After grabbing attention with the delightfully cheeky title of their upcoming Netflix film Maa Behen, actors Madhuri Dixit, Triptii Dimri and Dharna Durga, along with director Suresh Triveni, landed in Delhi for a fun and candid conversation at HT City Stars in the City with Sonal Kalra, Chief Managing Editor, Lifestyle & Entertainment, Hindustan Times. Here are some highlights from the session:

For Triptii, sharing screen space with Madhuri was still a pinch-me moment. “This is my second film with ma’am after Bhool Bhulaiyaa 3, but we didn’t get much time together then. During Maa Behen, we became friends and I’m very proud of that. Main toh bahut show off karti hoon, ‘Main Madhuri ma’am ko personally jaanti hoon. I talk to her every day’,” she laughed.

Madhuri, meanwhile, revealed that the cast bonded quickly during workshops. “My only rule was: besharam bano. Say whatever you want to each other. We had so much fun and I think that translated onscreen.”

Before the camaraderie came the casting challenge. As director Suresh Triveni put it, “The biggest question was, ‘Maa kaun banegi?’”

Recalling how Madhuri signed on, he said, “We narrated the script to her in August 2024. Me and my writer overacted like hell and used all our advertising tricks. In the end, she said, ‘I’m doing it’. After that, she became my trump card. With Triptii, it was, ‘Madhuri Dixit has said yes’. With Dharna, I just said ‘Madhuri’ and she was in.”

Dharna readily agreed: “I was so excited and nervous when I met Madhuri ma’am, like any die-hard fan would be. She said hi to me and I was like, ‘Whoa!’”

While Madhuri has played mothers onscreen before, this one felt refreshingly different. “I have grown-up kids of my own, so there was never any hesitation,” she said. What sealed the deal was the character’s unpredictability. “We always put mothers on a pedestal. Here (in Maa Behen) she says, ‘Agar main jail gayi toh tum dono ko saath mein lekar jaungi.’ I loved that!”

- DHARNA DURGA